In an ever-growing and increasingly competitive climate, many of our clients are turning their attention to protecting their intellectual property on a global scale. Enter: the Patent Co-Operation Treaty Application or, PCT Application.
You should involve an international business lawyer and an international accountant or CPA as soon as you begin thinking about expanding abroad to a new market. Many lawyers and accountants would prefer to have a 20 minute conversation at your early stage to help you avoid many obvious and immediate issues rather than receive a frantic call six months later when you have run into trouble. You should get comfortable with asking these types of questions as early as possible.
Intellectual Property and United States Customs 1. Trademarks and U.S. Customs Trademarks are defined in U.S. law as a word, name, symbol, device, color, or combination thereof used to identify and distinguish goods from those manufactured or sold by others and to indicate the origin and source of goods, even if said source is unknown.
Foreign companies see China as increasingly risky and they are looking to move out or reduce their footprint there.
THE buzzword for the next 5-10 years will be "zero-China." It is mostly being used to describe companies seeking to re-jigger their supply chains to completely exclude China, but I think it will eventually come to mean any effort to be rid of China.
Selling a stripped down (off the shelf) WFOE seldom works. Sorry.
There are those who believe China's ongoing Party Congress will bode well for companies that do business in or with China. I am firmly convinced that the opposite is true and that it will used as yet another opportunity by China to show that it will not be cowered by the declining relations and sanctions/counter-sanctions between the United States / EU / Australia / Japan on the one hand, and China on the other. I see China using this Congress to let the world (domestic and external) know that it fully intends to fight back and fight back hard. In other words, this Party Congress will lead to China's decoupling from much of the world accelerating, not slowing down.
Recently, I was fortunate to attend a World Trade Center Utah event attended by Minister Jing Quan, the number three-ranking Chinese diplomat in the U.S. This was the first visit by a high-ranking Chinese official since the imposition of the "Trump tariffs", after which a massive delegation of Chinese officials descended on Salt Lake City
At least once a day, someone -- usually a client -- asks me if President Xi will hold onto power. And every day, I give a much shorter version of the following half-serious, half-facetious answer: He will hold onto power, but for how long I don't know. It's like the stock market. I can right
If you manufacture branded products in China, trademark registration should come early. A foreign trademark does not protect you there, and waiting can leave your factory, shipments, and brand exposed to squatters, competitors, or even someone connected to your supply chain.
